//------------------------------//
// Queen Bees 
// Story: Greene Fields under Red Lights 
// by Europa 
//------------------------------//






DAY 10 OF INFECTION: 17% OF EQUESTRIA INFECTED 




Chrysalis


Queen Chrysalis had, over her long life, developed a sort of sense for when something was horribly, horribly wrong. It was necessary given the parasitic lifestyle of her people; when your 'host' discovers you, it's time to jump ship before you are eradicated.

Something was horribly, horribly wrong.

The sense had served her well in the past. She'd ducked the Zebran Inquisition when the natives had suddenly wondered where the sudden outbreak of fatigue in their government officials came from. She had, ever so briefly, brought her people's love supplies out of the red and into the black with the diamond dogs. It had told her where to go to dodge the patrols Canterlot sent out after her. Her sixth sense for bad events had never failed to help turn something calamitous into something merely bad.

Now it was telling her to return to that accursed place, Canterlot. She knew why too.

Despite the failure of her invasion and subsequent changeling hunts, complete with revelation magic, she still had a rather intricate spy network. Not as absolute as she would've liked, of course; the Crystal Empire was still off-limits to her. Her network, combined with the telepathic link present between all changelings, let her know of the situation in Equestria.

She grumbled to herself and lit up her horn, illuminating the inside of her private chambers. She strolled over to the wall holding maps of various countries, and looked at the one depicting Equestria; it was to the northwest of the Badlands that were her home, and covered in various tacks of differing shades of green.

She sighed. She really didn't want to do it, but she looked at the dark green and light green tacks on Canterlot; the changelings in the dungeons and the ones she'd inserted as spies post-invasion. Chrysalis had been planning to free them for so long, coordinating with them through the link, but the day before she had prepared to let her infiltrators do their work, something had happened.

Just before she'd prepared to free her kin she had felt something overcome her link to them, crushing their ability to talk to her across the world. It was like a minotaur had grasped her connection and peeled it off with its fingers, until they were utterly severed from her.

She wrenched the tacks off and placed them into the black box that rested on a nearby table, locking it. Oh how the thought of that infuriated her. At first, she'd thought that the pretty pony princesses were ousting them, but as the days passed and her infiltrators throughout Equestria reported to her, she knew that it was this new disease spreading throughout the country. One that seemed Tartarus-bent on infecting everything, changeling and pony alike.

She sighed and looked at the map, now bare of a few tacks. She was really going to have to do this, wasn't she? She was really going to investigate Canterlot and see just how bad things were. Her sense for danger had never led her astray before.

She strode out of her chamber, the two Imperial Guards that had waited outside the curtains falling into step besides her. The black tunnels of her Hive were complicated, twisted, and illuminated only by the faint glow given off by the eyes of herself and her subjects. She knew them like the frog of her hoof, and meandered the paths easily. She had a mission, but before she could start working on it she had several things to get in order.

'Hive Coordinator, meet me in the Chamber of Observation post haste.' She switched the target of her telepathy, her stomach giving a quick growl at her. 'Swarm Commander, come to the Chamber of Observation immediately.'

Two sets of 'Yes Your Highness' followed immediately after, leaving Queen Chrysalis to nod. She caught herself, given that the only ones around to see her nod were the two Imperial Guards at her sides. She strode on, avoiding her throne room entirely, and soon she left her Royal Chambers behind and walked through the military tunnels that surrounded them. Guards snapped to attention as she passed by them, but she paid them no mind as she left the military tunnels and entered the heart of her hive, where the civilians lived.

It spoke of her people's military power that the two were equal in size. Many, many enlisted.

The Chamber of Observation was where real time maps were updated. Though the ones in her personal chambers were good for overviews, the global map in the Chamber was far more detailed.

She was, no surprise, the first one there. Her Imperial Guards took posts on the inside of the tunnel she'd entered through, and stood at attention.

The Chamber of Observation was a large, ovoid chamber carved into pink granite, though given how the only light came from herself and her subjects' eyes it seemed more of a rotten purple than anything. In the middle was a giant square desk with two stacks of maps upon it, one for each hemisphere of the world. Not that there was much on the other hemisphere; a gargantuan ocean with only a few smatterings of islands. Underneath the other map of the main continent were various maps of smaller and smaller areas, each covered in enchantments.

Five tunnels led in, spaced in a perfect pentagon around the walls. From various spaces hung portraits of past queens, starting with the first queen of all changelings, Queen Tenodera the Green, all the way to Chrysalis's own mother, Queen Thorax the Orange. One day she too would get a picture, but she wouldn't ever be able to see it.

Chrysalis lit up her horn, producing that much more illumination in the room. She shuffled the maps around until she produced one of the Crystal Empire and Equestria, which was where everything interesting in world news seemed to happen these days. Wasn't a big surprise, every nation got its turn; she'd been regaled with nymphhood stories about the return of Bronze Talon in the Griffon Kingdoms, followed shortly by the Feathered Fiend.

Eventually, Hive Coordinator Bztik and Swarm Commander Polin entered, each from a different tunnel. Bztik was a fairly large changeling, with three distinctive notches on his ears, wide forward facing holes on his forelegs and backwards facing ones on his hind legs. He wasn't much to look at either; the holes on one wing were a perfect mirror of the other. Still, he possessed a fierce mind and he was the one who handled most of the civilian duties. She had him to thank for smoothing things over after the catastrophe, though he didn't seem to be aware the only reason she still had a throne was him.

Polin, on the other hoof, was exactly the opposite of Bztik. He was remarkably small and thin, even for a male, though the vast asymmetry of his holes made him quite attractive if she did say so herself. His ears were almost entirely unnotched, similar to her own. They both bowed to the ground when they saw her.

"Get up and come here," she demanded. They did so, arranging themselves around the table. "Swarm Commander, report on the status of Equestria's... condition."

"We have identified that the origin of this disease is the alien, the same one Cliklat tried to feed from in Canterlot," he said in his painfully shrill voice.

She remembered Cliklat, he had given her the first reports of the alien. He always was trying to bite off more than he could chew.

Was.

"She appears to be actively spreading the contagion to the ponies, resulting in the wide-spread mind control our scouts report."

Chrysalis scowled. "And it's afflicting us too, isn't it?"

"Well..." he said. Chrysalis could sense his worry and reluctance to say the bad news.

"It is, I know it is. The problem is, now that we know this isn't just some natural plague, what are we going to do about it? How does this affect us?" she asked rhetorically.

Rhetorical or not, it was the Hive Coordinator's job to answer her questions. "It's uncertain. On one hoof, the disease is extremely contagious and needs magical precautions to even partially hold it off. Unless the ponies have a great trick up their wings, Elizabeth Greene will eventually subjugate their population entirely, enslaving them forever."

Hmph, at least she'll finish what I started, Chrysalis thought ruefully. Even if she doesn't get anything out of it.

Btzik went on, heedless of her untransmitted thoughts. "Whether or not we can still feed off the ponies afflicted is a major question, as is how we can safely do so without being infected ourselves. It's horrible in Equestria, Your Highness. The reports given by our spies indicates - "

"I know what they indicate, I've heard them too!" she snapped. "There's also the matter of whether or not Greene will stop with Equestria. At this point in time there are too many unknowns regarding the infection and that is not acceptable!" she snarled.

Swarm Commander Polin bowed his head. "My apologies, Queen Chrysalis. Shall I send infiltrators to question - "

"No," she said sharply. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this myself."

"My Queen," Polin said hastily. "I must protest, if you were to succumb to this disease - "

"I'll maintain a hard light barrier around myself with clean air, and teleport away if I start running low. I don't trust anyling else to do this correctly. I will inform the both of you of my progress and any conclusions. Until then, maintain stability in the hive during my absence."

He didn't look happy about it, but Polin nodded. "Y-Yes, Your Majesty."

Chrysalis nodded, and tapped the map of Equestria with her magic, lighting up the little dot that read 'Canterlot'. "The alien resides there, yes?" They both nodded. "Good, then I know my destination. I am taking a day's worth of love and heading out; keep stability or else," she warned. Letting that threat hang in the air she stepped back from the map and stomped a forehoof. A ring of green flames rose up around her, fraying the nature of reality and reconstructing it...

... reconstructing it far beneath her.

The uninviting, uncaring Badlands stretched all around her, flat blackened stone as far as the eye could see, scorched by the baking sun overhead. A dry, hot wind blew through the land. There were no landmarks as far as the eye could see, but Chrysalis could easily make out the subtle little dent in the ground that was the entrance to the lands of the Unified Changeling Swarm. Otherwise, the windswept plains were remarkably unremarkable. 

It was home.

Taking quick directions from the sun overhead, Queen Chrysalis began flying northwest towards Equestria, putting all her strength into her buzzing wings. She'd need speed if she wanted to make this journey in one day.

As she left her hive behind, she reached through the telepathic networks inherent in her kind to the store of love. It was small, far too small. The trickle of loving pouring into it from her adoptive children out in the field was just shy of being enough to sustain it; the consumption was ever so slowly draining it. Her only saving grace, as she pulled a hefty amount of love from the storage, was that the Canterlot Invasion had still given them a remarkable amount of love in a short amount of time. They weren't starving, but even with heavy rationing they were headed there.

Time passed and the sun slowly moved across the sky as Chrysalis flew. Soon, the air turned less arid and more humid, the land rougher and rougher, with some patches of vegetation eking out a living in little cracks. As the sun slowly crept towards the horizon, Chrysalis's long journey came to an end as the desolate Badlands gave way to fertile, disgustingly overgrown Equestria. Far off in the distance she could see Canterlot Mountain, with the city that gave it its name wreathed in a faint red miasma, the castle sticking up from the fog like an ocean-locked volcano.

She couldn't help but gulp. If she could see that all the way from Equestria's border, then who knew how bad things truly were? The Queen of all changelings lit up her horn with emerald light, encasing herself in a transparent green sphere. She knocked on its inside with a hoof; it would hold. There wasn't an eternity of air, but as long as she only let it down in uninfected areas she would be fine. With a flash of flame she concealed her barrier and disguised herself, just another faceless pegasus.

The empty plains of Equestria flew by beneath her as she approached her target. She certainly wasn't going to go to Canterlot directly, especially not with the giant, red-encrusted building there; she circled around and took a perch underneath one of the castle's long shadows. A glance down revealed one of Canterlot's many streets, Alicorn Way if the sign was anything to go by.

It was as she'd heard; the ponies wandered aimlessly, covered in cancerous growths. She couldn't smell the diseased air through her invisible shield, but the towering monstrosities that walked the streets made her glad she couldn't. On first glance it confirmed everything she had known, but it didn't answer any of the unknowns. Could she still feed on infected ponies? Could she do it safely? Would the Evolved infect her people once she was through with Equestria?

Twitch twitch twitch went her left ear, then right, then left again. Chrysalis smirked and opened her emotional senses up. She stifled a gasp; the air was absolutely inundated with love. Before she could even begin to wonder where it came from she lit her horn with a dim glow - disguised or not - and started drawing it in, gulping it down fervently.

It was familial love, and there was lots of it. It flowed through her invisible horn, down her throat and spread throughout her body, filling her with warmth and energy. While it wasn't the intoxicating rush of power and well-being given by romantic love it certainly was enough, and it didn't seem to be depleting. Chrysalis kept feeding, her disguise's wings fluttering as she did so. Once she'd fed enough that she was warm and full for the first time since the invasion, she opened her mind to the telepathic link. She kept feeding, sending the love back to storage, and they were once again gaining more food than they were using.

Still... it was subtly off. There really wasn't any appropriate analogy for emotions, given the lack of flavor, texture and substance, but the closest thing she could compare it to was this love being overly sweet, almost a little spoiled even.

Oh well. Food was food, and she wasn't about to complain. Still... where was all of this love coming from? Normally, feeding this much would've exhausted her victim to the point of unconsciousness, yet none of the diseased little ponies seemed any worse for the wear.

She stopped draining the love from the air and licked her lips. That had felt good.

Queen Chrysalis wrapped one of the dumbly staring infected in her magical aura. It didn't take long to find what she was looking for; there was some sort of hive mind around it. It was similar to her own, but where the link between changelings served only to allow verbal communication, this one was much more firm. If her network was a series of threads connecting every changeling, then this hive mind was a network of alicorn-blessed heavensteel rods as thick as her hooves. She could feel it connecting the infected to... something, but she couldn't pinpoint who, what, or where.

Each of the dozen infected she examined had the same link, and it was from these links that the tremendous outpouring of food came. It almost made Chrysalis shed a tear by how much love was being wasted; whoever crafted this hive mind had made it impossibly firm but also sloppy, as was expected with non-magical telepathy. The love that these infected felt for... someling and vice versa was leaking out from them, filling the air before dispersing into nothing.

They could feed from the infected. In fact, given the vast amounts of love she had gathered from just this sitting and the lack of struggle, it'd be better for them to let Equestria be infected. Now if only she could figure out how much of a threat this was to her people.

As if hearing her request, there was a slam behind her. Chrysalis whipped around, and shed her disguise in shock when she saw the figure.

Queen Chrysalis was tall. As such she was used to looking down on lesser beings. She rarely faced anyling as tall as her; she had no interest in the Minotaurian Republic or the dragons, so Princess Celestia was one of the few she had met she could look in the eye. This being, however. She'd heard about it from her infiltrators, of course. Tall as an alicorn, bipedal like a minotaur or diamond dog, but practically a skeleton. It hadn't prepared her, however, for the appearance of something so light weight that could match her height.

The alien's orange mane was wispy and unkempt, as if it had been cut by scissors enchanted with Come-To-Life and never grew back. Chrysalis's keen eyes could make out hundreds of thousands of furs along its face and hands, but they were so thin and short as to be nearly invisible. The gray suit, covered with tubes, wires, straps and metal clasps, covered almost its entire body and pressed tightly onto the creature's skin, leaving only its hands and head uncovered. Not even the neck was uncovered, and on the clearly-female creature's left shoulder was a thin spread of blood that made the shoulder appeared unclothed and afflicted with a rash.

The eyes were impossibly small, dead green, curious and raging all at once. The nostrils rested on a beakish nose over a thin mouth. To the left of its left eye was a massive bloodstain that tinted a bit of its mane, and there was a smaller such splotch to the right of its mouth.

The alien opened her mouth, and Chrysalis was taken aback. The voice had a hissing undertone to it which started even before the first word formed. Each heavily-accented Equestrian word rippled and echoed, far more than Chrysalis's own voice did. "Who? Doing what what what?" Queens before her, even once she'd stopped talking her voice still kept echoing, with a strange, subtle pressure on the inside of the changeling's head.

Queen Chrysalis scowled. She hated having to speak Equestrian. "I hardly see why I should tell you who I am." She began to pace sideways, keeping an eye locked on Elizabeth Greene. "I have some questions for you, as well as issues with you." The alien turned to follow her, silent but leaking emotion, filling Chrysalis with curiosity and offense-taken that wasn't hers. "I hear you've been busy with the ponies, doing..." She waved a hoof over at the infected that were now staring intently at her. "This."

"Yes yes yes," Greene said uncertainly. "Am. Why?" 

Chrysalis scanned the Evolved, and confirmed her suspicions. Extending from the alien in all directions were the unbreakable hive mind links. This was the center of the infecteds' web. "First off I want to thank you for that. It's making feeding my kind so much easier, with all the love the ponies you afflict give off. However there are a few questions I will ask you."

Now smiling slightly, Elizabeth nodded. "Ask." Heavens, that voice was going to give her a migraine before long.

"You have afflicted a dozen of my subjects to date with your virus." Greene tilted her head, confused. "While I can let it slide given how they were caught in the crossfire," she lied, already planning on how to get vengeance for that. "I must know if you intend to keep doing so to my subjects."

Elizabeth looked down, muttering to herself. "Subjects... anomaly? Feed, changelings..." She looked up at her. "Queen," she stated.

"That is correct, I am Queen Chrysalis of the Unified Changeling Swarm. You have yet to answer my question. What do you intend to do once you have finished with Equestria and the precious little Crystal Empire?"

She shrugged. "Other species species species. Change blessing for them. Not for you. Works for you," she said gleefully. "Changelings next? Maybe maybe maybe."

That raised Chrysalis's hackles. "I forbid you. You are to keep away from my hive and that is nonnegotiable. I have no problem with you doing whatever you want to the other races, but if you come to fight us then you'll feel the full force of the military that brought Canterlot's Royal Guard to its knees."

Elizabeth frowned. "Can't can't can't win. Can't fight." Greene stepped forward and placed a hand on the outside of Chrysalis's barrier. How had she known it was there? Regardless, it began to fold ever so slightly under the tremendous force Elizabeth put on it, seemingly without trying. Queen Chrysalis reached into her now-ample store of love and strengthened the shield spell. If it broke, with her in the middle of the infected miasma... "Can't beat. Children strong, more than you more more more. You can't stop blessing, no crystals no no no. Even then, fight direct, protect children." She took her hand off the barrier.

It took Queen Chrysalis a few moments to understand what she'd said. Despite being fluent she still struggled with Equestrian, especially when the grammar was so lacking. "Oh really? And if I were to fight you?" She puffed herself up with bravado and pride. "I, Queen Chrysalis, who fought and defeated Celestia herself in single combat? You would fight me?"

"Beat Celestia too." Greene didn't sound happy about that, but it was enough to make Chrysalis's confidence crumble. She couldn't detect any lies on Greene's voice, emotion sensors or otherwise. Regardless, if Elizabeth truly had beaten the Goddess of the Sun, then Chrysalis was in no hurry to fight her. She didn't have that little captain's love fueling her and she didn't have her subjects to fend off the infected.

Regardless, she stayed strong and proud. "Is that so?" she cooed, eating more of the familial love that leaked into the air. "In that case, what could I give you to come to an agreement? You leave my people alone and in return I help you grind Equestria's military into the dust?" She subtly cast a suggestion spell at Greene, but it seemed to just slide off of the alien's mind.

"Help... but no. Will bless. Will bless, bad not to. Could use help but don't need winning don't need only want." Elizabeth shook her head, the ragged mane flying about. "No no no deal. Will bless, show you, understand."

Chrysalis fought the urge to frown but kept pacing around Elizabeth. "No deal, so certain? It would be so easy for you. All you have to do is not come to the Badlands. It would take literally no effort and in exchange you don't have to put your..." She looked behind her at the infected ponies. "... kin at risk."

"No. Entire world, all all all."

Queen Chrysalis frowned. "You're very set on this, aren't you?"

"Reason for everything," Greene rasped. She began approaching and smiled. "Don't understand, you don't. Change change change." Elizabeth Greene reached out with her hand and began pressing against Chrysalis's shield, which instantly started to give way.

With a panicked snarl she backed up and, with a quick buzz of her wings, flew out of reach of Greene. She was not getting infected. Though she was starting to run out of fresh air; she had to wrap this up quickly. "My final offer Elizabeth Greene, consider this very carefully. I aid you in return for you not afflicting my people, or I give you nothing. You're with me or against me."

"Wrong, black white no gray wrong. Will Bless." Elizabeth crouched down, red and white tendrils flickering about her legs, and Chrysalis had to suppress a laugh. Was she really going to try to jump at her? She was as high up as two buildings!

Of course, that thought flew right out the window when Greene leaped up and... she just kept going up. In no time at all the Evolved was on her, forcing Chrysalis to dodge to the side lest her hard light barrier be shattered. She flew higher and higher, and when she was certain she was high enough she went higher still until she passed the tip of Canterlot Mountain, the diseased city far beneath her. The giant ensnared structure stuck out among the gold and purple architecture like a sore.

She took a deep breath and reviewed what she had learned. Afflicted ponies could still be fed upon and, in fact, were easier to do so than their healthy counterparts. That was where the good news ended; the disease would afflict anyling that didn't take great safety precautions and Elizabeth Greene was fully intent on spreading it to her hive in the future. She didn't doubt that, with those of her subjects already enchained by the enormous hive mind of the Evolved, Elizabeth already knew where to find her.

What could she do? She couldn't very well fight the Evolved; discounting the impossibility of fighting the entirety of Equestria's population alongside an infectious disease that would take from her people and add to the enemy, and of fighting any other races Elizabeth could possibly enslave before turning her sight on the changelings, Chrysalis was not keen on crossing horns - hooves? Arms? - with someling else that had bested Celestia. And under their own power, if the subtext was correct.

She couldn't hide from the infected. With a hive mind like that and the ability to spread throughout the world, where could she run? How would she possibly feed off of them without being noticed? Disguises wouldn't work; the infected would 'notice' that one of them wasn't in the hive mind and her cover would be blown in an instant. Not using a feeble link that barely qualified as telepathy during the heat of battle to oust the Element of Kindness was one thing, but mulling around listlessly with a hive mind that strong was something else entirely.

She grimaced as she realized her only course of action left. She couldn't hide from Elizabeth and couldn't beat her on her own. She dissipated her barrier to let fresh air in, and then summoned another shield. Just in case.

Queen Chrysalis sent out the telepathic message to several changelings back home to come to her location. So that they'd do what they had to. Pride was a terrible emotion to eat. Using the woefully inaccurate flavor analogy, it was strong, bitter, and far too spicy...

But she would just have to swallow hers.


***-_***_-***-_***_-***-_***_-***



Twilight Sparkle


A quill scribbled away and mathematical charts spun around Twilight's head, figuratively and literally. This was quite possibly the most difficult mathematical undertaking she had ever performed, and she loved it.

A chaotic system was the name of the game, in this case it was modeling the growth and expansion of the infection. It certainly took her mind off what she had been doing prior, helping evacuate a street while trying to levitate two Breakers into the air, long enough for the military to arrive and... take over.

Still, while she could always appreciate a good math problem this one was unnerving. Not to say it was too difficult; while predicting the movement rates of ponies within the rapidly-expanding quarantine was a challenge and with the effect of Colonies and Breakers the routes the infection could take were numerous it was still well within her abilities. Oh no, the math was hard but it certainly wasn't impossible if you forewent lunch. It was unnerving because of the enormity of what it described.

Frowning as she got the same predictions for the twelfth time in a row, she sighed and stacked her papers together. With a flick of magic the papers entered her saddlebags, which then settled against her body. She pulled away from her study desk, glanced at Spike sleeping in his basket, opened the door and slipped out.

She was in the Stalliongrad Town Hall, since their previous 'base of command' had been taken by the infected just yesterday. Utilitarian was the only word to describe it; perhaps it had been different in the past but now the marble corridors were almost empty of all decorations, while the mayor's office was a hastily repurposed infirmary for injured civilians. The hospitals were either taken by the infected or overflowing. Twilight didn't feel keeping anypony in close quarters was really a good idea, but the nurses and doctors were very good at separation fields.

Soon enough she crossed paths with Applejack. Her stetson was torn on an edge and she didn't look like she'd been getting enough sleep, despite Applebloom being safely in the Crystal Empire with her friends. Even her amulet-induced sparkles seemed dimmer. "Rough day?" Twilight asked, ready to be the supportive friend. It was her turn, right? Or had she lost count? She knew she shouldn't have left the catastrophe-chart back in Ponyville. They started to trot and walk.

"Ugh, ya have no idea Twi. Ya'd think ponies would listen to good old fashioned common sense in these times, but all I hear is 'how come you get an amulet' and 'how do we know you won't get us sick' and 'I grew up in this home I'll die in this home'. Ponies don't seem to get that it ain't worth losin' their heads over, and that they'll be goin' back once all this is over."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Twilight said earnestly. "Have you at least been steering clear of the infected?" 

She nodded. "As well as could be hoped. Still, had ta distract one of them big ones long enough for everypony in Trotlagar Square to run. How's the math goin' on your end, Twi?"

She couldn't help but grimace as they turned a corner. She could smell the fresh air already, coming from the open pavilion where they'd be eating. The Princesses were out today, busy with a dangerous amount of Colonies. Rainbow and Pinkie were also out, while Rarity had retired to bed early, explaining how nopony would listen to her when she helped evacuate if she didn't get some beauty sleep beforehoof.

The pavilion held two tables and offered a perfect view of the Crystal Mountains up north, the dome of the Crystal Heart, and the twilight sky. Her BBBFF was already at one of the tables, munching away on a salad, the plate that had once held an omelet pushed to the side. He looked much better than he had; his sparkling coat was groomed, his hooves polished, and his eyes were alert. Twilight liked to imagine she too was rebounding up.

"Heyth Twilith," he mumbled through a mouthful of baked grass. "Athhlejath."

She rolled her eyes as the two of them took a seat by their own prepared meals. "Shiny, that's gross!" she complained.

He swallowed the food in his mouth and rinsed it down with a glass of water. "Sorry. So how are you two?"

"Well," she said, levitating the most important of her papers out of her saddlebags and setting it next to the plates. Align by point three millimeters to minimize chance of staining... perfect! "I finally finished the math and... it doesn't look good."

She took a sip of water and, grabbing her fork in telekinesis, brought a sliced carrot into her mouth. "Not good how?" Shining asked. "I know it's spreading fast but it can't be that bad, can it?"

"I have three predictions; a best case estimate, worst case, and most likely, all based off how fast the infection's spreading, how well it's being fought off, how the public is reacting, wind current schedules from Cloudsdale, so on. It's not a pretty picture."

"Lay it on us Twi," AJ said. "It can't be that bad, can it?"

"Alright, so look. We're on day thirteen now, the end of it anyway. Already the infection has gotten more ponies sick than Black Spread ever did, number and percentage wise. Nopony's died to it outright, but that's a moot point because if anything, the infection's speeding up. I did the math, and all things considered... we're looking at a - mmph, onth momenth." She finished chewing a piece of omelet and swallowed it. "As I was saying. By the end of the infection it'll be a lot slower, since the only unaffected ponies left will be hiding in holes. We're looking at greater-than-or-equal-to ninety-nine percent by day twenty one. That gives us a week, unless we do something to slow it down."

"A-A week?" Applejack stammered. "Only a week?"

She nodded grimly. "And that's not even considering that as we approach that, things will be getting much worse. It's not a sudden thing, it's gradual. My best case scenario involves us developing new techniques to slow down the infection but we don't succeed in containing Greene; that gives us to day thirty. Worst case scenario... Elizabeth Greene figures out a way around the crystal barriers, creates a ton of new types of infected to overwhelm the military, and we don't come up with anything. That gives us only to day seventeen. But all in all, twenty one is the most likely point."

"Sweet Celestia," Shining Armor muttered. "That's no time at all. We can't... it's too much space! How the hay are we supposed to do anything in a week?!" he demanded. With forceful, snapping telekinesis he downed more water, looking like he wished for it to be something stronger. "How are we..."

"I don't know, BBBFF," she said sadly. "But we better start thinking of how to make Elizabeth stop this."

"How in the hay are we supposed to do that, Twi?" Applejack demanded. "She beat up Celestia all on her lonesome, without any of those big things helpin' her or freaky powered-up magic. She doesn't go where she doesn't want to go, she's smart enough to avoid fights she can't win - "

"I don't know how!" she shouted. She chewed angrily on her salad, ignoring the slight buzzing sound in her ears. Take that, salad. "I don't know. The only thing we can do is slow down the disease as much as possible while we make some sort of trap. But what sort of trap I don't know!" The buzzing got louder, and slowly everypony at the table put down their utensils and turned to face opposite the sunset.

Before Twilight could fully register the approaching black shapes they touched down, and the buzzing of wings stopped. There were three of them, the two to the sides wearing dark blue armor and the middle one much, much taller with slightly luminescent eyes. Applejack gulped, Twilight's breath froze, and she heard Shining Armor snarl as the central figure stepped forward. One of the side figures had a white flag attached to their flanks with green slime.

Before either her or her brother could summon their magic to either defend or attack respectively, the tall changeling spoke, her voice as doubly resonant as she remembered. "Elizabeth Greene must be stopped."